European Security News.- Left to right The Minister of Defence of Italy, Mr. Mario Mauro and NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen

Italy is preparing to triple military navy sea patrols off its southern coast to avoid a repeat of deadly shipwrecks of the kind that killed over 360 migrants near Lampedusa last week.

Unmanned drone aircraft based in Sicily could also be used to identify the packed and precarious migrant vessels, as well as a new radar to track the boats. Italy wants also to assume command of Frontex, the EC’s boarder protection agency.Italy has plans for an amphibious landing craft with enhanced medical facilities and also upgraded helicopter services.Italy is also calling on the European Union to provide more assistance, and has said that Lampedusa is the border of the whole continent, not just of Italy.

Libya’s Prime Minister Ali Zeidan told La Repubblica newspaper that, unlike in the time of Muammar Gaddafi, Libya was currently in no position to stop the illegal wave of immigration from its shores to southern Europe. He said his country would need help with its deteriorating security situation to do so.

The UN refugee agency estimates 32,000 asylum seekers have landed in Italy and Malta this year – many of them from Eritrea, Somalia and Syria.